


when all your love is in vain

by klose



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Comic Book Science, Confessions, M/M, Sex Pollen, ToT: Chocolate Box
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 01:39:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8425753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klose/pseuds/klose
Summary: An unfortunate accident turns Nightwing into the human equivalent of sex pollen, but Batman claims to be unaffected.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallencrest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/gifts).



> Fallencrest, I liked what you had to say about this pairing, and ended up using various elements of the prompts in your letter. Have a great Halloween!
> 
> I imagine this to take place around the time of Rebirth, after Dick's time with Spyral, and in the beginning of his third 'career' as Nightwing, but I don't think you need any in-depth knowledge of the relevant comics to follow along. 
> 
> **Warning(s):** There is no dub-con or non-con here, although the subject matter (a sex pollen type toxin) being what it is, there might be an uncomfortable situation or two, but nothing extreme or explicit.

* * *

Dick knows that people often find him attractive. He's used to being flirted with. Hell, he's indulged in his own fair share of inappropriate flirtation. Beyond that, ass pats from villainous types or kisses from grateful civilians are inevitable in the superhero vigilante life, and being seduced by vampires—well, that's a more of Spyral thing. Probably.

A straight up mob of people throwing themselves at him, though. That's a whole other level.

"Everyone, please, I'd really prefer not to hurt—eep—" He flinches as a costumed zombie suddenly licks the collar of his uniform. This is the point where he'd conveniently grapple himself out of the situation, but he'd lost his hook half an hour and three blocks earlier, while trying to hold off the Halloween hen party dressed as sexy nurses.

"Ooh, Nightwing, I'd love to get a taste of you," one of the zombies croons, even as the others surround Dick.

He takes a breath, debating how best to extricate himself from the situation. He just needs to get to the hidden Bat-garage between Shoreditch and Robinson Park, somehow. There are no convenient roofs to leap across, not without his grapple, but—

A sound canon wails in the air, just sharp and loud enough to distract everyone except for Dick, whose heart leaps in relief as a dark shadow descends upon them—just long enough to grab him before returning to the sky, away from the covetous hands of costumed co-eds grumbling, _"Aww, Batman"_.

Dick lets himself cling to Batman for the few seconds that they are airborne. They haven't talked in a while, and the tension between them has been awkward lately, but Dick has always found just his sheer presence to be reassuring. _Sometimes when I'm scared, I think of Batman,_ a young boy had once told him; Dick understands that impulse all too well.

They land in a dark alley just a few blocks away, and as Dick uncurls his fingers from Batman's cape, he notices the Batmobile parked in the shadows.

"Thanks for the save," he begins to say, smoothing out his torn costume as best as he can.

"Get in the car," Batman growls, stalking towards it.

Well, it's not like Dick expected a catch-up session anyway, and escaping into the relative safety of the Batmobile is probably a good idea. There might be stray passers-by in the vicinity, and they could very well fall under the influence of the pheromones which cover Nightwing from head to toe. Even as he opens the passenger side door, Dick can already hear more Halloween revellers in the distance.

Batman clicks a switch on the console, before revving up the car and speeding out onto the street. "I have Nightwing."

"Very good, sir." Alfred's voice is tinny over the comms. "We were worried, Master Richard, after your suit's electronics went so suddenly offline."

Dick winces. "Sorry about that, Penny-One. I got dunked in a vat of chemicals that shorted everything out, including my comms."

Another voice chimes in—Duke Thomas, Bruce's newest student. "The date-rape drug that we traced to the Court of Owls?"

"Yep. The warehouse and everything in it is now in smithereens, but..."

"We still need to take the formula off their hands," Batman says.

"And finish developing an antidote, while we're at it," Duke adds. "Especially if Nightwing is infected—"

Batman cuts him off. "I'll deal with Nightwing and the antidote. I need you both to prepare the decontamination chamber and clear out the cave before we get back."

He terminates the connection, and Dick can imagine that Alfred and Duke might still be talking to Bruce through the earpiece in his cowl—complaining, probably, although given the night he's had, Dick understands Batman's caution in this instance—but Bruce doesn't say anything further.

For once, Dick isn't sure how to fill the silence. _"Hey, how about all those people coming at me like I'm sex pollen, huh?"_ would just be way too awkward to bring up with Bruce, of all people.

Though—Dick realises with a jolt, as he sneaks a sideways glance at the other man, that Batman isn't wearing any apparatus to stop him from breathing in the pheromones coating Dick's costume and exposed skin.

To be fair, he also hasn't made any... _advances_... towards Dick. Not now, in the enclosed space of the Batmobile, and not even during those few seconds he carried Dick in his arms, away from the co-eds in the zombie get-ups.

Still. It seems oddly out of character for Bruce, to not even take this simple precaution.

"Batman, how are you not wearing a gas mask or rebreather?" Dick frowns, leaning forward in his seat to start digging through the glove compartment in search of one.

"I don't need it," Batman replies, in a terse tone that indicates he doesn't want to discuss it further.

Dick opens his mouth to say something, anyway, but Bruce just reaches over to slam shut the glove compartment, turning on the radio to flood the car's speakers with headlines from the local news station.

So that's the end of that, apparently. Dick frowns. Is it Bruce's exceptional self-control at work? Surely not. Surely even _he_ can't defy human biology, though Dick has to concede that Bruce is hardly typical and if anyone can repress that sort of thing, it would be him.

Anyway, it's not like—well, it's not like he _wants_ Bruce to try and kiss him while under the influence of a dangerous, sex pollen type drug.

Because that would be wrong. Terrible.

Just a hollow, meaningless facsimile of something Dick's wanted for a long time. 

But it figures that even being drenched in industrial-grade pheromones wouldn't be enough to make Bruce _want_ Dick.

It's stupid, irrational, and very awful to be _bothered_ by it, but that's exactly how Dick feels; his chest twinging painfully.

Neither of them says anything further for the rest of the drive home.

***

Dick completes his twentieth handstand lap up and down the quarantine chamber, and gets back onto his feet to grab the last sandwich on the tray Bruce had sent through. Peanut butter and Nutella. God bless Alfie. Dick hasn't had one of these in months. Not that St. Hadrian's had a bad sandwich game, by any means. Their bacon butties at breakfast were worth every calorie.

"I wonder why Alfred never makes British type sandwiches?" he says out loud, licking Nutella off his fingers. "I acquired a taste for them during my time at Spyral. Branston pickle with cheese, yum."

Surprise, surprise, even though the audio-visual feed on the decon unit has been switched on, Bruce doesn't reply, probably too focused on the anti-toxin he's trying to figure out all the way over at the Cave's compounding lab.

Dick wishes he could be there, too, helping Batman, but they weren't certain that the decontamination shower had completely rid Dick's body of the drug. So even after Dick was thoroughly hosed down and dried off in the Bat Cave's decon unit, he had needed to move into the adjoining quarantine chamber, just in case.

"I think Alfred keeps a jar of marmite in the pantry."

Dick sits up, surprised by Bruce's quiet answer.

"Marmite? Bleh," Dick says, shaking his head fervently. "Who even came up with the idea of yeast extract as a sandwich spread?"

"It's a by-product of beer fermentation, I hear." Bruce almost sounds amused.

Dick shudders. "Ugh."

The conversation, such as it is, ends there, but the ensuing silence is oddly companionable.

Dick takes a break from calisthenics to sit still for a bit, at least while his stomach digests that last sandwich. He's never been good at sitting still for prolonged periods, though, so he starts tapping his feet and singing to himself, without even really thinking about it. Traditional blues standards, mostly. The fire eater at Haly's Circus, Darnell, had taught him a whole repertoire of them, and they pop back into his head every once in a while.

He segues into _Travelling Riverside Blues_ and gets almost all the way to the end before realising that " _squeeze my lemon, 'til the juice runs down my leg_ " may not be the most appropriate lyrics to be singing, under the circumstances.

Whether the circumstances are his encounter with sex toxins or the fact that Bruce can hear every word he's saying—well. That is not something he really wants to think about.

 _Babe I'm Gonna Leave You_ , is, at least, appropriately depressing, given his mood. _Love in Vain_ isn't particularly uplifting, either, but hey, these _are_ the 'blues'. What's surprising, though, is that Bruce actually starts humming along.

"My mother often played that record in the evening," he says, afterwards.

"Really?" Dick never knew Martha Wayne, but he'd always imagined her as a prototypical upper-class white women. One with progressive ideas, certainly, given her charitable causes, but with aesthetic tastes common to those of her social class.

"Her family's housekeeper introduced her to blues music," Bruce says. "You've met her niece, Roberta."

Memories of a lady with kind eyes and a warm smile resurface in Dick's mind. "Your old secretary? I still have the sweaters she made me at Christmas. How's retirement treating her?"

Bruce launches into a summary of Roberta's life in the last few years, where her children are working now, the colleges her grandchildren are attending. That Bruce kept tabs is entirely unsurprising, and Dick is certain that he'd enabled her grandson's recent scholarship to Princeton.

Bruce's inability to trust people, or to open up, really pisses Dick off sometimes, but he's never doubted that Bruce is a veritable papa bear who cares too much; about everyone. Even the damn villains. It's one of the many reasons that Dick has never got over his stupid, pining crush.

As it is, he can't help smiling, letting the soothing timber of Bruce's voice wash over him while he waits for his quarantine to end. It's been far too long since they just _talked,_ and he's missed it.

***

When Bruce is finally satisfied with his antidote compound—only after his own battery of tests on isolated samples of the sex pollen toxin—Dick returns to the decontamination unit of the chamber so he can get dosed.

"It should have neutralised the molecules lingering on your skin and any that may have diffused subcutaneously," Bruce says, after they've waited ten minutes for the antidote shower to take effect. He programmes a water and air cycle to clear out any leftover chemicals from Dick's body and the chamber itself.

Dick is very ready to get out of that enclosed space. And to get some fresh clothes on, while he's at it, since he'd had to strip off his uniform just before his dosing. "Are we good to go?"

Bruce studies the console on the decontamination unit for a few long seconds, presumably checking the environmental stats, before he finally looks up, nods, and unlocks the chamber.

"If I never have to spend another night in there again, it will be too soon," Dick says, almost leaping out.

"How do you feel?" Bruce asks, handing him a clean set of sweats and underwear.

Dick quickly pulls them on, conscious of Bruce's eyes looking him over intently. "The antidote stung my eyes and tasted a little bitter, but nothing unbearable." He waggles his eyebrows. "But never mind me. Are you feeling any urge to hump me on the hood of the Batmobile?"

It's a stupid joke, both thoughtless and self-conscious, and Dick regrets it immediately. Not least since Bruce didn't show any sign of wanting to do that before, even when Dick was actually covered in aphrodisiac chemicals.

Bruce returns to the console, typing in commands. "That's hardly an accurate measure."

Dick exhales loudly, unsure if Bruce's complete lack of reaction is worse than the joke itself. "I know, I know, what am I thinking? You are Bat-God, immune to such base human urges."

He turns to stalk off towards the stairs, not bothering to wait for a reply. It's not like Bruce is going to have one anyway.

"Dick." It's a soft, almost a sigh, and Dick turns, startled. Bruce is still staring at the console, and when he speaks again, after an interminable pause, his voice is very quiet.

"A synthetic compound is not necessary to make you..."

There's another lengthy silence; and a sudden, strange feeling in the air, like latent electricity. Dick steps forward, trying not to shiver from the odd itch that starts to prickle the back of his neck. "Make me...?"

Bruce clears his throat, visibly swallowing before he looks up—and his eyes are usually an intense blue, like the colour on Nightwing's new suit, but Dick's heart stutters a little at how _dark_ they seem now. "Desirable."

Oh hell. _Hell_.

"So you're saying the drug didn't work on you, because you already..." Dick licks his lips, trying to parse his next few words despite how hot and dry the Cave suddenly feels. "Because you already _want_ me?"

Bruce has his mouth pursed into a thin line. Dick gets the sense that he would rather be anywhere else but here, and there's no saying he won't just shut down this discussion and walk away.

So Dick steps forward again, encroaching further into Bruce's personal space, because no way in hell is he going to allow the other man to get out of talking about this.

After a long moment, Bruce says, in a very flat tone, "Yes."

... Holy sex pollen, Batman.

Dick splutters, because even if his body is already getting excited, the logical, Batman-trained part of him isn't quite there yet. "But that makes no sense! There was so much of that stuff on me that people were trying to _bite_ me, and I know you have a lot of self-control but—"

Bruce narrows his eyes. "But?"

Maybe Dick should just take what he can get, to not question anything. To just—throw himself at Bruce, wrap his arms around those broad shoulders, and kiss that hard mouth, like he's always wanted to. But Bruce trained him better. Dick has questions, and he's going to get his answers.

He stares at Bruce, who is also staring back at him. "Well, some specifics would help."

"Specifics?" Bruce repeats, maybe just a little incredulous—or even nervous—and it's his turn to step forward. To stalk forward, even, hands fisted at his sides.

He's still intimidating, even wearing his usual sleep outfit of pyjamas bottoms and a loose robe. Dick noticed long ago that Bruce never wears a shirt to bed, and right now, looking at the bare, muscular expanse of Bruce's chest, Dick feels trickles of sweat rolling down the back of his neck, onto his spine. 

"I mean, maybe you're still under the influence of the drug right now, and you just don't know it," Dick says, his voice sounding faint to his own ears.

"You doubt the efficacy of my antidote?" And Dick almost laughs, because Bruce actually sounds _offended_.

"No, no," he says hastily, knowing better than to question Bruce in these things. He wouldn't have unlocked the decontamination chamber if he wasn't a hundred and ten percent sure that it was safe.

"I just..." Dick runs a hand through his hair. He's just. In shock. Maybe a little confused. Because as much as he's always hoped for and wanted this, he'd very much resigned himself to never getting it.

"Your 21st birthday," Bruce says, after another drawn-out pause, his voice gravelly. "The champagne had left you smiling and flushed and pliant. You put your hand around my shoulders and I wanted, badly, to pull you into my arms and keep you close."

Oh.

Dick blinks, robbed of words by Bruce's confession; only able to inhale sharply when Bruce jerkily reaches forward to touch his shoulder.

"That night on Wayne Tower, just before Tim became Red Robin. You brought coffee and laughed at your own ridiculous puns, and all I could think about was how handsome you looked. How much I wanted to comb my fingers through your hair; to just touch you."

There's a roaring in Dick's ears as Bruce's hand slides over the juncture of his shoulder to cup the back of his neck. His fingers curl into Dick's hair, and it feels so soft and so good that Dick's eyes flutter shut, just for a moment.

"Last month," Bruce rumbles, almost Batman-deep, "when you saved Damian from the bomb that the Court of Owls had planted in his brain. You apologised, because you thought I would be angry, but all I wanted to do was to _kiss_ every part of you."

Dick feels his skin burn just from the smouldering look in Bruce's eyes. They're standing so close together now that they're practically breathing into each other's mouths, raggedly heaving in air because the Cave suddenly feels so _hot_ and stifling.

"When you first came back as Nightwing. I saw you one day, practicing rotations on the pommel horse. And I realised you were not the boy who left, but a man, full-grown and _virile_ , and I just wanted to drag you off the pommel, and put my head between your thighs, instead."

And that—just sends blood racing away from Dick's brain and down to the pit of his gut because _fuck_. He does the only thing he can think of, the only thing he _wants_ to, the only thing he has wanted to do for the last few minutes and for a long, long while besides: he grabs the lapels of Bruce's robe and pulls him down for a kiss.

Even if he didn't believe Bruce's words, earlier, he sure as hell believes them now because Bruce isn't so much kissing him back as _devouring_ him; tongue all hot and thorough, as if he's been thinking about doing this for years, maybe even as long as Dick has; lips and teeth so wet and rough, as if he has been hungry just as long, starved beyond all sense and control.

It's like that time the Gotham dam broke after that awful hurricane a few years ago, and Dick had been nearly swept away as a young Robin: left breathless, overwhelmed by the current, and all he can do is just hang on when Bruce's arms wrap around him tight—to cling to Bruce's shoulders, gasp into his mouth, and let himself be kissed senseless.

And even when Dick has to wrench his mouth back, to try and suck air into his lungs because he feels like he's going to black out from the dizzy headiness suffusing every nerve in his body, Bruce doesn't pull away; just kisses down Dick's jaw, to his neck, licking and biting and _sucking_ the skin there, and _holy hickeys, Batman_ , there are going to be visible marks but Dick doesn't care a whit because it feels so damn good.

He wraps a leg around Bruce's waist, pulling him closer, and that's when he nearly dies because Bruce is _hard_ against his own aroused cock and even with the layers of cloth between them, it's so fucking hot that Bruce actually _growls_ , manhandling them both to press Dick up against a wall.

It takes Dick a few seconds too long to realise the wall is the glass panel of the decontamination chamber he just got out of barely five minutes ago, but how is he supposed to think when Bruce's hips are rolling against his like that? _Fuck._

"This was not how I pictured this night going," he gasps giddily, still desperately winded, locking his hands in Bruce's hair just because he can.

And he regrets it, because that makes Bruce pause in his endeavour of covering Dick's neck in bites and bruises and Dick can't even feel embarrassed about the half-articulated whine that escapes his throat because this is even better than anything he'd dreamed of or fantasized about in the last few _years._

Bruce's lips and tongue are warm and wet as they brush over the shell of his ear. "Have I been specific enough for you?"

And even if Dick can't see Bruce's face, he can _hear_ the naked desire in the low murmur of Bruce's voice, and it's enough to have his hips stuttering.

"Whaa—oh. Oh, yeah," Dick pants fervently. "All good. And I am totally okay with no further talking."

Bruce pulls away at that, just a little. And jeez, Dick has no defence against that tiny smile curving up Bruce's bruised, red mouth; echoed in his still-dark eyes. "I find that hard to believe."

Dick grins back, more than a little crooked. "Take me to your bedroom, and I might just show you what else I can do with my mouth."

And it's not the most festive Halloween he's had, but it's definitely his favourite, because Dick gets to do exactly that, and so much more.


End file.
